I can’t remember the last time I had as much fun during my birthday week. It started with Wednesday night, when I came home at 11pm after a long day of playing school-catch-up. Kurt wouldn’t let me inside, because he wasn’t done with something, so when he finally let me in, there were balloons and streamers hung around the alcove and presents and roses on the table! He had also baked me a chocolate cake which we didn’t cut into that night. It was a very sweet surprise. We opened the cards and his parents’ present (a KitchenAid hand mixer, yippee!) and went to bed, since school/work started early the next day.

Thursday is my 6.0 hour school day with no breaks in between. However, I warned my classmates that I fully intended on coasting on Oct 28th! Luckily, our group project due that day was fine (thanks to Scott pulling the report together) and there wasn’t anything else due. My 4-hour MIS class passed without great event but Spanish class was awesome! We worked together in groups and then our prof taught us how to sing Happy Birthday in spanish, since me and another girl both had birthdays that day. After class, some of us plus the prof went to the SFU pub, where they treated me to nachos and pitchers of beer. A fun time was had by all, and it was nice to get to know some classmates outside of “What is the weather like in Bolivia?”

Kurt picked me up from the pub and Jay & Erik went with us to Horizons Restaurant for dinner. They have this West Coast Feast special going on this month, $25 for a 3-course meal. Not bad for a swanky restaurant! We had a great dinner and conversation, where I got more drunk; but my salmon was a little dry. When the server came to pick up our plates, she asked why I didn’t eat my salmon. When I told her it was a little dry, they actually took my meal off the bill! Sweet. Jay and Erik also gave me a $50 gift certificate for IKEA…just about my favourite shopping experience in the world! I’m looking very forward to spending that

Friday was a lazier day. Finalized a group simulation in the morning (which we kicked ass in) then went downtown to do errands before going to SFU for my Accenture interview. It went reasonably well; the guy who interviewed me was someone from the Infosession I went to, and they are looking for someone that learns stuff really quickly, which is the focus of my career…hoping for a call for Round 2.

After the interview, we went to Josephine’s Filipino Restaurant for dinner before going salsa dancing. Kurt, Tim, Eileen, Shareen, Sarah from Spanish class, and Ian from VC were able to join me, so we had a pretty fun dinner figuring out what dish had what ingredients in it (like the dinuguan with the black sauce). Kurt brought the cake he baked and we had it for dessert, but there was so much of it that we wound up sharing a lot of it with the staff at Josephine’s. When the restaurant found out it was my birthday, they gave me a free cassava cake plus a frosted green mug. How sweet!

Salsa dancing was at the Polish Community Centre near my dad’s house on Fraser. It was a little hard to find, since there was no sign outside and all we saw were closed doors and some closed-mouth Polish smokers. But yes, there was salsa inside and everyone eventually found their way there. Ching-Yin also joined us for dancing, and it seemed like everyone enjoyed their try at salsa. Ian and his girlfriend Vivian were asking for new moves, and the girls had no problem finding friendly guys to teach them some more stuff. Hopefully me, Sarah and Ching-Yin can coordinate our time to go more regularly. And Ian and Viv, when their school/work schedules allow them the time.

A bit about the dancers…unlike Winnipeg, where the scene is quite small and disparate, the community centre was crammed with about 200 people, with no shortage of guys. When the lights dimmed after the 1-hour beginner’s lesson, it practically looked like a nightclub. Pretty cool.

The first guy I danced with outside of our group was REAL good. We danced for 2 songs, and by the end of it he was spinning me super fast and doing fancy dips, both of which I LOVE to do! The second guy, Philip, was pretty good too, and we had fun navigating through the crowd, which like I said earlier, was pretty packed so finding good dance space was a competition. The third guy, Nicholas, was a ballroom dancer that knew how to salsa. You can usually tell them apart from the normal salsa dancers. He held himself a lot more stiffly, lead me around VERY strongly, and was more technical about the dance and less about enjoying the music and the partner. He was telling me to relax my fingers more or something like that. I was pretty pissed off. 1) at a club you don’t treat people like you’re their instructor unless they ask you for advice, you just go with it and remember not to dance with them again. 2) he was leading me so hard that I had to cling on to him for fear that I’d fly across the room and crash into a table, like in Along Came Polly or other sitcoms skits where people spin a girl much too strongly for their weight. Bah. As you can tell, I didn’t enjoy his company and we parted ways with much criticism.

My favourite dances were with Kurt. We mostly danced to Merengue and Bachata, instead of Salsa; those dances are a little more low-key and can be danced quite close. Think of Bachata as a sort of lambada dirty-dancing kind of dance, with some sideways hip swishes every now and then. I wish there was some way to have Kurt get less intimidated by the other dancers around us, because he is a quick learner and he knows how to lead…it’s just a matter of confidence, I think.

Today is the family birthday party with Lola, whose birthday is Halloween. Looking forward to the excess of food! Haha. I’ll tell you about events of interest later on this week. Oh, and once Tim sends me the pics he took, I’ll upload them to the photo gallery. Bye for now!